So that principle holds good. Take Isaac, for instance. You have him in his early youth bound and laid for death upon the altar. Indeed, that must have been a pressure for him. “Behold the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?” And there he is, lying bound. You can see what would enter his mind and thoughts — what the view of this world would be for one lying in that position, as he was. That was pressure. Now for the enlargement. He comes back from among the dead, and the Lord God comes to Abraham and says, in respect of Isaac, “In thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed.” There was the pressure, and there was the answering enlargement.
The principle works all the way through. Take Joseph, down in the pit — no water, the place of death. He is taken from there and put in the prison. The iron enters his soul. He lies there in fetters. But what was the answer to the pit and the prison for Joseph? His glory filled all the land of Egypt, so that every being in the land, and from other lands too, came and said, “Thou hast saved all our lives.”
Take Paul. It is a lovely subject to follow up. Here is Paul in activity, and he is taken and put under pressure. He is shut up in prison. In all the intense devotion and activities which were his for Christ, he is put in prison. There is pressure. What now? Out from the prison there came the most precious of all epistles that we have —the epistles to the Colossians, to the Ephesians, to the Philippians, the second Epistle to Timothy, and to Philemon. That rich and glorious enlargement which has nurtured and fed the whole church of God from that time to this came out of the pressure of prison.
The principle works all the time. You might take up those who have been known to us. For instance, our beloved brother Mr. Darby, whom it was my privilege to know — it worked with him. He had ideas and thoughts from which nothing was coming, and God was pleased to lay him aside for three months through what we would call an accident or misfortune or calamity. And in those three months laid aside, with the capacity to do nothing but to think, there was formed in his spirit that light which has become clearly the light of recovery for this present day. There was the pressure, and the enlargement has come in a manner, not only for his blessing, but greatly for our blessing and enrichment.
So, beloved brethren, I just want to suggest to you and to all of us that, in the ways of God, we are in the environment in which these things will reach us. I would like to impress this upon you, that, as a matter of observation, there is more of trial and affliction among the people of God than there is in the world. The world has its vicissitudes that have come about as a consequence of sin and lawlessness in man. But in addition to our being affected by those things, we cannot doubt but that God makes selection in His own garden, so to speak, of those whom He lays aside just for the pure blessing of the house of God — choice souls, souls who live in the love of God — those who, being laid aside, you might say their value in activity has gone. Ah! But laid aside, as it were, under the hand of God, who can tell their worth in that way?
So one is privileged to look upon it that God makes selection of those who shall adorn His house in the way of pressure and trial and affliction. We should look upon them in a certain sense as honored vessels, while we convey to them the expression of our deep sympathy. They are honored vessels. Time was when I used rather to wonder whether pressure or affliction was the evidence of the governmental dealings of God. But I think it more correct to view it that the laying aside in the governmental dealings of God is much the smaller part of the affliction and pressure that we have among us. Rather, one looks upon it that, as you go to your garden and pick your choicest flowers or your best fruit, so does the Lord make selection of those who are the very choice in the knowledge of Himself and who are evidently much in the secret of the Lord, as loving Him.